The Botanic Garden in May: As Pretty as a $100 Picture

By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK

Published: May 16, 1988

Hang Ching Lam, the owner of the Dragon Garden restaurant in the Poconos, was married in Chinatown yesterday. But the hours before his wedding found him with his bride, Hau Hung Yim, smiling for cameras on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Turtle Island.

''That's romance,'' said 17-year-old Irene Chan, a cousin of the bride, explaining why the couple had paid $100 for the permit to have their wedding photographs taken there and to make use of a security guard to keep other people out of the picture. The guard can also keep turtles, ducks and swans at bay, unless the couple requests otherwise.

The cost was high, but the effect of the setting, with the Japanese pond and the violet-carpeted Shakespeare Garden in the background, was dramatic.

''Are they filming a movie?'' asked one woman who was detained in a crowd at a wooden bridge as a few pictures were snapped. ''Or is that a real wedding?''

Wedding season - or wedding photo season, since most couples actually are married somewhere else - has begun at the garden. At least six couples, Mr. Lam and Ms. Yim among them, bought permits for the photographs this past weekend.

Although there were no such apparently imminent weddings in their families, many of the 14,367 visitors to the garden yesterday had cameras with them anyway. With the sky a clear blue and happiness a thing almost tangible in the air, with children generally shouting and adults generally smiling, the outings were occasions asking to be remembered.

''As we have a little child, and I heard in May that the flowers were in bloom, and it was a fine day, so I made a decision to come here,'' said Akira Owada, a 29-year-old doctor from Japan who is in the United State for a few years as a research fellow at Cornell University Medical College.

Mr. Awada was taking photographs of his wife, Hiromi, and 18-month-old daughter, Yuka. And, he allowed, he was thinking a little bit about excursions he and his wife would take on rare days off back home: ''In Japan we had a car, so we might drive to a mountain or a sea,'' he said. Much Like in Shanghai

Zhuang Qingqi, who was walking in the Cherry Esplanade with two friends from China, was feeling a bit lonesome for his family - his wife and two boys - as well as his home.

''In Shanghai? In Shanghai, on a day like this we would go to the park and maybe row a boat,'' said Mr. Zhuang, who is studying biochemisty on an exchange program at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. ''Maybe we would do some household work,'' he added. ''But maybe not.''

''This so warm,'' said Mine Bohcman, who came to the United States from the Soviet Union a few years ago and who was sitting on a bench with Yacob Rosenberg, who took out an umbrella to shield her from the May sun. ''In Kiev,'' she said, straining her command of English, ''cold.''

On Daffodil Hill, Umberto Sanchez was kicking a small plastic soccer ball with his sons, 6-year-old Javier and 15-month-old Ivan. ''In San Salvador,'' he said with a smile, ''the weather is never colder than this. If you want fishing or a picnic, you can go any time.''

Raj Vardhan and Marc Volter, who became friends after both started working at a drugstore in midtown Manhattan a few months ago, spent most of the afternoon taking pictures of each other in front of the section where the roses of Sharon grow. ''I'll send the pictures to the country where I come from,'' said Mr. Vardhan, who is from India. ''And he'll send the pictures to his country,'' he added, meaning Haiti, where Mr. Volter's is from.

One of the few people who was actually working in the garden yesterday was Peter Casler, the vice president in charge of operations. He and a small crew were cleaning the grounds in front of the Desert Pavilion, part of the new conservatory wing that will open to the public this Thursday. The Steinhardt Conservatory, which consists of a greenhouse and three other large glass pavilions. is the first phase in a $25 million expansion project that will more than double the area for public exhibits and indoor planting. Sundial an Hour Behind

''It'll be a little lightly planted in places to begin with,'' Mr. Casler said of the new wing, ''but you'll see that the trail of evolution is essentially complete. And you'll see the bonsai house essentially complete.''

Mr. Casler paused to mop his brow. Still, many other people nearby were no busier than Austin Garside, a retired hat manufacturer, who took several minutes to check his wristwatch against the time indicated by the sundial in Magnolia Plaza. ''Of course, the dial's an hour behind,'' he said, explaining that sundials take no account of daylight savings time.

''That's a nice saying,'' said Mr. Garside, pointing at an inscription on the side of the dial. ''Serene I Stand Amyddst ye Flowres/to tell ye Passing of ye Howres.''